


Magnet

by kirkland_strider



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Attempted Sexual Assault, F/F, Vomiting, domestic AU, i think
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-28
Updated: 2014-06-28
Packaged: 2018-02-03 01:19:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,986
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1725905
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kirkland_strider/pseuds/kirkland_strider
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She is the opposite of me in nearly every single way I could find.</p><p>And I'm definitely and hopelessly attracted to her.</p><p>--</p><p>An anecdote to Rose isn't an anecdote at all as she rambles on about the love of her life.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Magnet

Jade Harley. No matter the year she's only a few days older than me. Expert in botany and mechanical engineering. Her name flows off my tongue like the sweet music I made with my violin so many years ago.

I hear of her long before I meet her. She comes up in conversation one day in junior year with my twin brother Dave, who mentions that one of his friends(who I knew as Karkat) had begun dating her the week before. I don't think much of it, I only know Karkat by association and don't know Jade at all. My mind is focused on other things anyway, like what colleges to apply to or that I need to go shopping for winter clothes again or what movie I should go see with my own girlfriend Kanaya this weekend. Dave mentions her more and more as he gets to be better friends with her and I just nod along and pretend to take interest.

It isn't until she's seated in front of me in English class senior year that I get to know her as an acquaintance.

She is everything I am not. I am short and dainty and have been referred to more than once as a living doll. She has weight to her that she carries well and she is tall, very tall, much taller than I and even Dave. My fingers are thin and my nails see a fresh coat of paint every other week, while her hands are large(which I learn is thanks to years of playing the bass) and littered with colorful rubber bands. I can't help but notice that her breasts are bigger than mine too which isn't much of a contest at all, considering I am fairly flat. Save for the light dust of freckles over the bridge of my nose, my skin is porcelain pale. She has a beauty mark next to one eye, and considering her Filipino origins her skin is tanned and freckled everywhere I could see.

That's another thing, while the only time I'm seen in short sleeves is when the weather is too hot, Jade is nearly never seen in anything that covers more than her shoulders and more often than that she wears less if she can get away with it. I wear velvets and blacks and violets and she wears pastels and neons and sundresses. My bleach blond hair stops at my neck and never sees more than a few strands out of place. Her hair is dark and messy most days, even frizzy sometimes and reaching far past her waist. While my eye color is a light blue, near-lavender shade, Jade has to hide her green eyes, her bright bright green eyes behind large circular glasses because she claims she can't see more than two feet in front of her without them. Though my body hair is blonde as well and is almost never visible anyway I shave it all, while the first day I meet her it's obvious she doesn't shave her legs whatsoever. Additionally, I never leave the house without at least lipstick and eyeshadow, while Jade's eyebrows are unplucked and the most makeup I have ever seen her wear is some chapstick.

Where I am sarcasm she is enthusiasm, where I smirk she beams. My voice is of a lower tone and always dripping of apathy, and from just talking I could tell how bubbly she is. On a rainy day I would curl up with a book and she would get hypothermia from playing outside for so long. My favorite place is the library, hers is the forest backing the edge of town. Thanks to my mother there are a number of cats that I own while somehow Jade's childhood dog is still kicking.

Similarly to me, however, she has a brother, who goes by John. When I meet him I'm not surprised how quickly he becomes friends with Dave and though he tries with me as well it doesn't develop to be the same bond as he has with my brother. I'm not that irked by it.

When I become better friends with her I learn of her fascination with space and the unknown. She tells me it doesn't seem to scare her to know how insignificant in the universe she is and I correct her by saying that might not be true. I tell her of my own fondness of the human mind and how capable it is and with so many possibilities and she hangs on to every word I say, something I couldn't even get Dave to do on a good day.

I spend more time with Kanaya to get my mind off of her. Before, I had found the beauty in my girlfriend as a whole but now I pick her apart with each similarity and difference she has to Jade. Our discussions are more formal, yet neither of us have any extensive interest in what the other has to say. When I run my fingers through her short hair I find myself wishing that it was longer, much longer and when I kiss her, I can taste her lipstick and her lips are drawn thin instead of the toothy smile I want to be experiencing.

It isn't long before Kanaya expresses to me that although she is flattered by my recent advances, she simply cannot reciprocate some of them, and then tells me she is asexual. While I had my suspicions the news isn't upsetting. We break up a month later.

I'm not as upset as I know I should be. Kanaya and I had been together for nearly two years. Though neither of us were going to attend the same college, it was bound to happen eventually.

So when Dave jokingly invites me to prom, I take him up on his offer. Seeing Jade there is a pleasant surprise and the two of us greet her. She's actually wearing red lipstick and her dress is a simple emerald shade and down to her knees. But when I see her with Karkat, dancing and laughing and kissing there's an odd ache in the pit of my stomach. I ignore it and instead attempt to have fun with my brother.

The colleges I apply to are varied across the country, but mostly over on the west coast. Most of my colleagues and superiors remind me of the prices of tuition if I were to go to a school out of state, but I want to see the rest of the country and considering I've spent a good fraction of my life in New York, I think somewhere out of state would be a good place to start. Dave gets accepted to a university in Austin, Texas. Jade tells me that John is going to Seattle before telling me that she got accepted to a place in California. I ask why California and she tells me she loves the sun and the ocean more than anything. And the schools are supposedly good.

The same school sends me an acceptance letter and with a tug in my gut I keep it.

Graduation is a blur and all I can remember is sitting for hours as every student's name is called and when I grab my own diploma I can see some of the students in the front row nodding off to sleep. I don't blame them. But considering I nearly graduated valedictorian I have an image to keep up and can't do the same as them.

After the ceremony the only person I can find among the raining hats is John and after draping a blue lei over my head he asks if I'm going to the graduation party someone is throwing. After a moment's consideration I tell him yes. The party is nothing short of chaotic and I bend to the will of peer pressure. The alcohol tastes awful but after a few cups have been drained into my system I feel at ease despite the number of strangers bumping me around.

At some point during the night I somehow find the bathroom only to see that it's occupied. I vaguely recognize the head of dark hair face first in the toilet and the circular glasses on the floor, and my cloudy mind recognizes that this is Jade. Crouching next to her I brush her hair out of her face(I remember the day after how soft it is) and rub circles into her back. She makes an awful retching noise and there's an ugly splash before she's lifting her head and flushing down her vomit. The stench still lingers and soon enough I'm emptying my stomach too. Soon enough the feeling passes and after washing out our mouths we spend the rest of the evening making drunken conversation.

When I wake up with my head in her lap the next morning it clicks.

Because I realize that I want to kiss her.

The summer is spent not in relaxation but packing up whatever of my things I am bringing to college, and then forcing Dave to do the same so he doesn't have to worry about it. I don't move into my dorm until a week before the semester starts but I would rather be prepared than have to rush.

Jade and John meet us at the airport considering we are all departing on flights. Dave and I both agreed to have our belongings shipped while John and Jade didn't want anything to get lost and so were paying extra for their luggage. To be fair it wasn't much but still, the both of us stayed to wait for them as they paid. Dave's flight leaves first and with a hug I tell him not to lose touch, and that I will see him at Thanksgiving. When the airport intercom announces that John's flight is boarding he surprises me with a hug and kiss. I tell him that I am a lesbian. He says that he knows, and just wanted to do that once. Then he's gone.

In the end I did decide on attending the same college as Jade so the two of us sat together on the plane ride to California. When we arrive on campus we part for our separate dorms. My things won't be arriving for another day but I'd still be sleeping there. My roommate's name is Nepeta and she asks if I'm allergic to cats. I tell her no, and that I have a number of pet cats at home. She tells me she's glad, as she couldn't bear to leave her own cat back at home despite her hometown being an hour's drive away. I decide I like her.

A month later finds me in Jade's dorm. Her own roommate is out for the evening but she asks me to spend the night and comfort her. Upon further prompting I find out that Karkat has broken up with her. It was to be expected, as he was attending a university all the way in Michigan, but I refrain from pointing that out as she cries herself to sleep that night with her head in my lap and my hand in her hair. I don't spend the night in her dorm again until Halloween comes around, and thus Halloween parties and alcohol come with it. I find that beer is disgusting and that I like wine much better over the years, but no college party in their right mind would serve the latter over the former. Still the night finds me drunk off my ass again and Jade tugs me home with her with promises of candy and sleep. I like candy and sleep.

Jade and Nepeta hit it off well when she comes to spend a night in my dorm and I'm glad there wouldn't be any awkward tension. But when Jade smiles at her in such a way the ache I had felt seeing her with Karkat makes me recognize it as jealousy. But I say nothing. Nepeta does move out before winter break with much apology but saying that her sister needs her at home and that she would just be communing to the university every day instead.

On the flight home for break Jade asks if she can move in with me so I don't get lonely. My heart flutters a little and I agree. The paperwork to do so is tedious but worth it when Jade dumps her things on her side of the dorm floor. Living with her is an experience in itself as she believes that everything has a rightful place, and half of those rightful places are on the floor. I on the other hand prefer a tidy environment and after some discussion I convince her to put her things away at least every other day.

When the second semester begins, I find myself being paired with a boy named Eridan for a long term project. He's eager to engage me in sarcastic banter and the change is refreshing compared to Jade's positive commentary. Though I can't bring myself to dislike that. Four weeks pass and after a study session in the otherwise empty student lounge he corners me and kisses me, near begging me to date him and wrongly convinced that we were meant to be. Gently I push him away and tell him I'm gay, but that just seems to anger him and he pins me as he kisses me again and again. He has his hand up my shirt and I'm near terrified now when the door opens and I glance at whoever it is from the corner of my eye. From my looks the guy could tell this wasn't just some couple stuff and he drags Eridan off of me without a word. He's sent back to his dorm with broken glasses and a black eye and the boy who had done so leads me back to my dorm. He tells me his name is Equius and if I ever have that kind of problem again I could find him in the student resources center.

Jade doesn't say anything about it when I insist on sharing the bed with her that night.

I end up doing the project by myself. Granted I still get an A on it by the end of the quarter but I had to work twice as hard as I did before and it exhausted me. Jade signs up to study abroad for two weeks and she's delighted to find out the college is sending her to New Zealand. When she kisses me the day she leaves I am speechless and she waves goodbye. The next two weeks are spent remembering the kiss and thinking about her and waiting and thinking and I can barely focus on my studies. Even if there wasn't much to study. When she returns it's with a fresh tan and souvenirs for me and her other friends. She gives me a framed photograph of the scenery there, a stuffed sheep, and another kiss. I kiss her back this time.

When we return home for the summer it is with great joy that we tell our families of our relationship. Dave of course teases me about it and in turn I ask him what his grades had been this past semester. John is a surprisingly good sport about it and congratulates us. My mother reminds me to stay safe and it is with flushed cheeks that I tell her that of course I will.

No longer required to stay in a dorm for next semester I ask Jade if she wants to stay in an apartment with me. She happily agrees and we fly back to California midsummer to look for an affordable place near the campus. Luckily we find a place not fifteen minutes away for far less than what either of us could make in a month. A week later and we're comfortably settled into the apartment. It takes her another week to get me into a bathing suit and to the beach with her. The sunburns I get despite using large amounts of sunblock are painful and as an apology she rubs aloe into my back.

That night we make love for the first time.

It is clumsy and slow and perfect. Every touch to my burnt skin sends heat and subtle pain everywhere and her curvy body fits against my lithe form like a puzzle piece. The many kisses we share are sloppy and wet and whatever lipstick I have on is left in smears down her body. I tell her numerous times how beautiful she is and she insists that I am much more beautiful than she is. I promise her that she is far more beautiful and to prevent her from arguing further I go down on her and thus elicit some of the most wonderful sounds I still have ever heard.

Now that we need to work for rent we see less of each other during the day and even less when the school year starts up again. While I find a job at the school library, Jade gets a job as a barista at the Starbucks on campus. Most of my nights are spent curled up in her arms and trading sleepy kisses with her. Some nights are spent having sex, yes, but other nights we stay up to keep each other company or have lengthy discussions about whatever we can think about. I wouldn't have it any other way.

One day at the library I hear arguing a couple aisles down from where I am putting returned books away to their rightful place. Hurriedly I find that a couple is having an argument that gets louder as it progresses and considering it's a library I break them up. The girl leaves in a frustrated huff. The boy tells me his name is Tavros and the girl's name was Vriska. She's his girlfriend. Well, was. He had tried so many times to dump her as she was a rather abusive girlfriend and it is with sympathy that I decide to be his friend.

I meet a few of Jade's friends one day when she suggests a double date. The two of them are lovely, the girl goes by Aradia and through his subtle lisp I find out the boy's name is Sollux. After the evening I ask Jade why the date so suddenly and why a double date. She says she never sees me with people besides herself and it made her sad to think about it. With a few kisses I promise her that even though she's the most important, I do have friends.

Which is around the same time that I start talking to Equius more. I find out that he's good friends with Nepeta as well and I tell him how much of a small world it is that she used to be my roommate. Tavros knows of her too, apparently, and you wonder how popular Nepeta is. Not very much, apparently, as it is purely coincidence, but still. I talk to John more as well online, and somehow it is easier to talk to him than it was before. Perhaps that's because of the sense of freedom that the internet causes. We swap stories of each other's lives as of late and our siblings as well. While John tells me of how Jade wanted to be a witch when she grew up I told him that Dave spent the first six years of his life pretending that I was a princess and he was a knight to protect me. I miss when Dave was honest around me like that.

On our twenty first birthdays Jade and I spend the evenings not at a club but just relaxing at home with a bottle of wine we bought from the grocery store downtown. Jade doesn't like the stuff too much but I find myself falling in love with it.

It's not until much, much later, around a year later that it becomes a problem.

I develop some sort of internal fear that I wouldn't be able to find a suitable job as a therapist and at some point I turn to alcohol instead of confessing the thought to Jade. The fear grows and festers with each glass I take and with each night that passes I find myself getting worse with it. A librarian's assistant is no way for me to live, sure right now I enjoy it and it's making money but it isn't something I want to be doing for my entire life. When I skip school one day and pass out on the apartment couch, only to have Jade shake me awake god knows how much later, she makes me quit cold turkey.

It's hard. In my sobriety I can see that my grades have slipped and getting those up without having a drink to relax is even harder. After two weeks I crack and have a glass of wine, just one, just two, just three. When Jade gets home to see me drunk she tells me she's going to sign me up for AA. When I cry she holds me until I fall asleep. The head of AA is a woman named Roxy and she's a peppy person that tries to get everyone hyped over getting sober. Turns out she had a big drinking problem as a teenager and all she wants is to help everyone from feeling like shit as she had.

I've been sober for two months when we graduate. I earn a degree in psychology and Jade gets a degree in astronomy. She surprises me with plane tickets to Hawaii for the summer and after giving her a skeptical look she says that first of all, we'd be going to a smaller island her grandfather owns and second, she bought lots and lots of sunblock. I kiss her in thanks and we pack for the trip, as the tickets say the plane goes in two weeks.

The trip itself is lovely. The ocean is clean and there are hardly any people around, and the ones who are are those who assisted Jade's grandfather in his work on the island. Most of the first month spent there is relaxing on the shore on my insistence, and exploring the island on Jade's. I'm fascinated to see the diversity of the island's wildlife and I make a mental note to tell John of it when I next see him. Biology is his field of interest, if I recall correctly. The nights are the most beautiful. From here there are so many stars to see and every night Jade points out a new constellation that I'll forget in the morning. Her eyes are much prettier anyway and I tell her so. She smiles and looks as if she wants to tell me something, but she doesn't. The next morning, I find out what.

Because when I wake up, she's slipping a diamond ring onto my finger and getting down on one knee. She says that yes, we're young, but she's not going to wait any longer for us to be together.

And I cry when I agree.

"Thus this is my vow to you, Jade, because nothing in the world could make me happier than you, and the story of how we came to be here," I conclude.

Jade is holding my hands and a tear slips down her cheek. Even though her white dress matches mine it's much more beautiful.

The man between us looks touched and clears his throat. "Now, by the power vested in me, I pronounce you wife and wife. You may now-"

Jade kisses me deeply before the man can finish his sentence and I don't even hear the cheering of our families as I kiss back.

**Author's Note:**

> hopefully this wasn't dumb
> 
> also i was going to post this a little later in the future but a draft only lasts for a month and the month is almost up so here you go


End file.
